Making Room for New and Better Work

We spend much of our time helping firms, practice groups and individual lawyers develop strategies for building profile, developing business and landing new and better work. Working for clients you enjoy serving and doing work that you find intellectually stimulating is personally and professionally gratifying.

There are a number of psychological barriers that hold lawyers back: lack of skill, lack of confidence and lack of courage to name a few.

One physical barrier is an office that is piled with paper, filled with files and burdened with disorganization. Look around your office – do you have room for new work? Do the stacks of client files give you comfort that indeed you are busy…enough?

by Karen MacKay, MBA, CHIC
President

A number of years ago an associate who was
probably in her fourth or fifth year spoke to me
out of shear frustration. Her office was jammed
with material and she frankly had no idea what to
do with it. Indeed, for every piece of work that
had been assigned by a senior lawyer, she had
opened a sub-file. No one had ever told her what
to do with those sub-files. They were never
gathered as the file was billed and closed.
Overwhelmed by the mess she simply froze and
felt powerless to take on new work or to begin to
build her own practice. There was no room in
her office or her head for new work.

A chaotic image gives the impression of a
chaotic mind – and a chaotic approach to client
work. These lawyers often have practice
management problems: time doesn’t get into the
system, client disbursements are carried by the
firm for long periods of time because clients are
not billed in a timely manner. This frustrates
firm management as well as clients. If you are
an associate you may not make partner. If you
are a partner you are bound to get hit at
compensation time because your practice
management skills are dragging down firm
profits.

Required Equipment

Find a weekend – this is a great way to use a
rainy weekend.

Turn up the music – you aren’t going to do
any of the work on your desk you are just
going to organize it so turn up the tunes and
have some fun.

Alone or enlist help – that’s your call – your
assistant can be extremely helpful but it
depends on your style (frankly I prefer to be
alone with my junk).

Equipment required – garbage bags, a
shredder, a cart (for stuff that belongs
elsewhere so it can be delivered to its proper
place on Monday morning). Furniture
polish, glass cleaner, markers, plastic trays
or boxes and Post-it notes.

Technology – if you wish to scan some of
your older material and file it electronically,
get some training on the equipment available
in your firm and use it during the process.

Space – (an empty boardroom close to your
office.)

Where to Begin

Bright and early Saturday morning move
everything off of every surface in your office.
Move it to the boardroom table. Don’t worry
about the order just get it out of your office.

Empty out the drawers – Clean the drawers and
keep enough supplies to fit in your top drawer.
Put the rest of the pens, pencils, paper clips etc.
into a box on the cart to be returned to the supply
room. You can probably save the firm from
having to order for a month!

With everything out of the drawers and off your
desk, the desk polished and the office smelling
good, you can now begin. Make some signs and
put them around your office so you can use the
floor. Example:

Filing for closed matters

Filing for current matters

Contacts (business cards etc.)

Reading

Time

Reporting Letters and Client Billings

Library books – they can go directly on
the cart

Your assistant’s name

Names of other individuals with whom
you work

The Heavy Lifting

Here’s the deal – nothing goes back on your
desk. Armed with some sticky notes every piece
of paper gets instructions and goes into one of
these stacks, or it goes in the garbage.

Things to be filed need instructions e.g. the name
of the client, the re line on the file and the file
number if you know it.

Business cards, saved paper e-mails and notes of
contact names need instructions so they can be
added to your database of contacts quickly,
efficiently and soon. Put all of that material in a
tray or a file folder so that your contact database
can be effectively up-dated.

The reading stack can be a challenge – because
lawyers have so much to read in order to simply
keep up. If the publication is too old it is likely moot so either put it on the cart for the library or
throw it out. You should end up with a
reasonable reading pile that can fit into a
briefcase. Imagine getting caught up with that
on a lawn chair or sitting on the dock. We
cannot possible read everything that typically
comes across our desks – the challenge is to pare
down your subscription or routing list to a
reasonable number of publications that you will
actually read. If you are in a large firm meet
with the library staff to review your routing list.
If you are on your own or in a smaller firm, have
your assistant make a note of everything that
comes in your mail over the course of a month
and pare it down – cancel some subscriptions
(not this one!).

Your billable time is your income – it’s that
simple. Get your time into the system.
Practicing law is not an esoteric exercise – it is a
skill and a service that has value.
It is fascinating how highly intelligent
individuals who grasp concepts easily and
quickly, fight the basic laws of practice
management with such vigor. If you are really
out of control, put all the paper, notes, time
sheets etc. into a stack so you can focus on it.
Enlist help to get caught up and give someone
you respect, nagging rights to keep you up-todate.

You have several opportunities to show your
clients the value you add: from taking
instructions, conversations throughout the
matter, production and delivery of documents to
reporting and billing. The reporting letter and
the accounting of the matter are the tangible
things that you produce for the client that
exhibits some of the value you add to that client.
So why is it so difficult to get the report and the
account done? It’s the Pareto Principle – that
80/20 rule. Why do lawyers get 80% of the
work done and leave 20% - the 20% that can be a
specific measure of value – in the cabinet, not
done?

Library Books and Periodicals belong to the firm
and are for the use of those firm members that
need them. Get them back to the library. If you
don’t have time to deal with a periodical that
arrives on your list because your name is next on
the routing list, stroke off your name and let it
move on.
What is left is a combination of stuff that needs
to be returned to someone, stuff that needs
instructions to someone, stuff that you need to
work on yourself and stuff that is garbage.
Organize everything within those categories.

David Allen’s book Getting Things Done1,
provides a process for dealing with all of this “stuff”. Do it, delegate it or defer it.

If you can
do it in less than two minutes – then do it –
dictate instructions, enter your time or put the
file away if it needs no action.

If you can
delegate it – get the instructions done (in writing,
in e-mail or by dictation) and get it to someone
who can take action.

If it can be deferred, file it – but get it off your desk.

Conclusion
If you can wrestle your office to the ground and
get your self organized a number of things will
happen. You will have more energy. You will
have a more positive outlook about work. You
will give yourself permission to play. You will
be more relaxed in the office and at home. You
will get more accomplished. And finally, you
will make room in your office and in your psyche
for new and better work.